An Englishman of forty years residence in Wales pontificates about politics (slightly off-message), films and trivia. Secretary of Aberavon and Neath Liberal Democrats. Candidate for Neath in the Westminster elections of 1997 & 2017 and the Welsh general election of 2016.

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Tax rises will be necessary

- and when the parties go to the country in May, they should not be frightened to say so. The big increase in Liberal Democrat representation in 1997 was on the back of a manifesto positing a penny on the basic rate of income tax. This time round, it will not even be necessary to touch the basic rate. The people on lower incomes have suffered enough.

The projected increase in NHS spending (of which Wales will get £70m) apart, public spending will have to be restrained for another year, as Nick has warned. However, there are signs that the long-delayed growth in Germany, the powerhouse of the EU, on which so much of our own recovery forecasts were based, is about to happen. Also, we may yet be surprised by the tax returns from self-employment, which should start to come in shortly.